Attempt to remove the anathema shows ignorance Filaret of Kiev

16.09.2016

As found by Ukrainian journalists, Kyiv didn’t leave pressure on the Ecumenical Patriarchate with the purpose of granting autocephaly of the UOC-KP and the lifting of the anathema of Patriarch Filaret. The result is natural: if the Ukrainians in Istanbul spoke politely, now from courtesy abandoned because of blatant ignorance Kiev claims.

As his godfather Victor Yushchenko, Petro Poroshenko leaves no thoughts about the creation in Ukraine of its own Autocephalous Orthodox Church. And in the last few months the work in this direction from Kiev significantly increased.

“In the end, Patriarch Filaret in the best case for it will be one of the bishops of the UOC-MP and will fight the heresies in Ukraine, under the category which gets the “UOC-KP”

In April the President of Ukraine at a meeting with leaders of religious organizations, stated: “it is Obvious that in the current situation many believers find hard to agree with the existing separation of Ukrainian Orthodoxy. Of course, I radically do not allow the state to intervene – and I will not allow – in interchurch relations. It is a matter of believers and churches. But to ignore the will of the people is also worthless, as well as to prevent unacceptable interference in these processes of another state. The Ukrainian people want to have a single Autocephalous Church, independent from other States.” As “another state” here refers, of course, Russia and the “will of the people” obviously means the opinion of the representatives of the so-called Kiev Patriarchate (not recognized by any canonical Orthodox Church) and other supporters of the Ukrainian “independence.”

The dialogue with the Ecumenical Patriarchate on the matter began in 2006 at the initiative of President Viktor Yushchenko. Patriarch Bartholomew all the “bold proposals” Kiev diplomatically ignored, citing the fact that it was not his canonical territory. The current Ukrainian government is trying to position Fanara (quarter in Istanbul, where, in fact, is the Ecumenical Patriarchate) to change. And in June this year the Verkhovna Rada adopted the resolution on the appeal to Bartholomew on the subject of granting autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In that document was, for example, and such theses: “the Draft resolution has the objective of accelerating the change of the status of the Ukrainian Church and the assertion of its independence of the aggressor state”. The essence of the treatment lay in the fact that, according to Rada, the decision on the transfer of the Kyiv metropolis in the canonical jurisdiction of Moscow was carried out under pressure of the Russian clergy at Constantinople, and therefore does not have canonical force. In order to correct the kind of injustice Fanaru offered first to take Ukraine under its “canonical wing” to bypass the Moscow Patriarchate, and then to give Kiev the right to establish their local Church.

Date treatment Happy picked up, especially in the same numbers, from 17 to 26 June, in Crete, was “a pan-Orthodox conference,” which, according to the idea of the same of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, was supposed to be a pan-Orthodox Cathedral. But he did not, as a number of local Churches, including the ROC, the meeting took no part in canonical and ethical reasons. In this case the decision of this Congress was not even supported by those present at the Crete representatives of the local Churches. But, anyway, for some outside observers, such “opposition” of the Russian and Ecumenical Church thought a favorable moment, to the wave of alleged protracted conflict to solve “the Ukrainian Church question.”

And again – past: before the end of the event, the Universal Church has responded to “the letter of the Cossacks”, and this time quite sharply. The priest of the Patriarchate of Constantinople Alexandros Karloutsos said publicly that “politicians should not have any relation to the issue of recognition of the Church”, calling the initiative of the Rada “audacity” and forwarded deputies and their sympathizers in Moscow, Patriarch Kirill.

It would seem that this “Ukrainian patriots” should calm down. But, according to the portal “News of Ukraine”, since the last act of “Autocephalous drama” at the Phanar had time to visit two of the Ukrainian delegation. The first from among the representatives of the “Kiev Patriarchate”, but it is none of the Universal Church to communicate does not want. The second included, among others, former presidents Viktor Yushchenko and Leonid Kravchuk. We are talking already not about creating some kind of abstract “Ukrainian local Church”, and that Constantinople lifted the anathema to Denysenko (Filaret) and recognized “the Ukrainian Church of the Kiev Patriarchate as canonical and equal with other local Churches. Serving these visits, again, as “the people’s will and longing of ordinary Ukrainians for Church independence (mostly from Moscow). In addition to blatant violations of the canons and the logic of the Church’s life, Kiev ignored the fact that the Procession for peace in Ukraine, held under the auspices of the UOC-MP, in spite of unprecedentedopposition and threats of violence, has collected this July from 80 to 100 thousand people. Those of ordinary Ukrainians, on whose behalf are now trying to tell Poroshenko, Yushchenko and Kravchuk.

Filaret (Denysenko), the self-proclaimed Patriarch of “Ukrainian Church”, such a right either. Once he was Metropolitan of the ROC. Then for his desire to become a Patriarch of Ukraine” was first banned in the Ministry, and then by the decision of the Synod of bishops “will erupt from sheer dignity, devoid of all degrees of the priesthood, and all the rights associated with being in the clergy”, “the cruel and the arrogant attitude of the subordinate clergy, dictate and blackmail, making their behavior and personal life of temptation among believers, perjury, public defamation and blasphemy against the Council of bishops, the Commission of religious rites, including ordination, in the state of suspension, the perpetration of a split in the Church.” Finally, in 1997 a decision of the same Council of bishops of Filaret was anathema.

It is important to explain what it all means in relation to the voyage Yushchenko and Kravchuk in Istanbul. To begin with, to remove the anathema Filaret need to repent. Repentance in the Christian sense is “change of mind”. That is, Filaret need to abandon that way of thinking, which led him to a split and the “independent Patriarchate”, and at the same time, from the Patriarchate as visible proof of his spiritual change. Here it is and more logical, and canonicae Filaret to move on my knees not in Istanbul and in Moscow. Because where I have seen his defection from Orthodoxy (anathema is such a certification), there should be remorse and his show. Moreover, to restore it to service in case of withdrawal of the anathema can only the Moscow Patriarchate, and even more precisely – the Council of bishops, the benefit Filaret was a clergyman and Bishop of the Moscow Patriarchate. In the end, Patriarch Filaret in the best case for it will be one of the bishops of the UOC-MP and will fight the heresies in Ukraine, under the category which gets the “UOC-KP” (in the worst monk Filaret will go to some of the Solovetsky skit to atone for sins).

However, all this level of “Orthodox fantasy.” In the current rhetoric Filaret there is no shadow of remorse, but there is a commitment to him and his “Church” acknowledged by all and Sundry and treated it as the ultimate truth for all Ukrainians. Which, incidentally, may explain the relatively small number of parishioners of the UOC-KP, in spite of preferences, formal and informal, data from the Ukrainian state this structure in different years. For example, since 2014, law enforcement agencies turn a blind eye to attempts to capture “the Filaret’s churchmen” of the Orthodox churches.

Departing from the canons and dogmas, with a fair share of confidence to assume that the phanariotes Church initiative of the Ukrainians, to put it mildly, tired. Sam Bartholomew, who very politely refused to Kiev in 2006, referring to Moscow, is now generally ignores the Ukraine. Instead, he responds quite drastically a priest, “the representative Fanara”, which is logical. With the fact that the UOC-KP is uncanonical, schismatic education, all the local Churches, obviously, agree. Moreover, all of these Churches know that in Ukraine there are canonical Orthodoxy, and it is the UOC-MP. Which can only make a living sane (or down Sana, Sana or no) to the clergy and monks Filaret. No Fanar neither Greece, nor Georgia, no other local Church can not do. The same phanariotes said that Ukraine is a canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate. Said, characteristically, several times. And, as acknowledged by the already mentioned “News of Ukraine”, in Kiev, Kravchuk and Yushchenko’s “unsatisfied”.

Simply put, the current actions of Ukrainian politicians that it is part of flirting with Fanara, that part of the “lifting of the anathemas” on the part of believers look like one continuous provocation, very clearly in this case under the well-known thesis: “If God wants to punish someone, he deprives him of reason”.